The Threepenny Opera programme

NORTHERN IRELAND OPERA & LYRIC THEATRE

BOOK & LYRICS BY BERTOLT BRECHT MUSIC BY KURT WEILL ENGLISH ADAPTATION BY MARC BLITZSTEIN PRESENTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH R&H THEATRICALS EUROPE

27 JAN – 10 FEB 2018

DIRECTED BY WALTER SUTCLIFFE

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LOVERS 12 MAY – 10 JUN 2018

WINNERS & LOSERS

By Brian Friel

Directed by Emma Jordan

WELCOME

I am delighted that the Lyric Theatre and Northern Ireland Opera have joined forces to produce this most playful, topical and, frankly, strange musical/ opera/play. In the ninety or so years since it was first produced, Brecht/Weill’s opera has lost none of its oddness. It is one of the quintessential works of art of the twentieth century and one of the most influential. But it is not pleasant, deliberately so. It has an almost hallucinogenic hold on the imagination.

The characters are a charismatically nasty bunch, operating on the dark fringes of society; wide-boy pimps and vengeful prostitutes, energetic beggars and seedy venture capitalists with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And yet, the songs have the ability to transform the mundane squalor into something close to, what a committed atheist would view as, heaven. They lift you up and elevate you over the cheap, nasty, brutishness of this sordid world of ‘exchange’ and ‘cheap commerce’ and show you the unblemished value of a person’s soul.

In our modern, cut-rate, theme park political world of Trump and Brexit, The Threepenny Opera has a vibrant currency in its desolate view of human progress - just think, shortly after the original premiere of Brecht’s and Weill’s highly acclaimed and hugely successful musical critique of western capitalism, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party were elected to power! All the artists had to leave town! So much for popular art’s influence on liberal thinking!

Kurt Weill produced a revolutionary score, utilising elements of jazz and German dancehall music of the time, with the intention of ‘interrupting’ the action rather than just being reflective of the story. According to Weill: “Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art! If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age, then this framework must be destroyed”. If the system is broken then tear down the system!

Brecht’s great skill was to run a sort of creative laboratory where so many of his collaborators exchanged ideas and forged new ones. It’s now widely accepted that, as highly brilliant as he was, Brecht 4

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did not write all his own work; that, quite often, if he didn’t have the initial idea, he would take a piece over and reshape it radically, often politically.

But as we will discover more and more where great men have prospered there is quite often a price to pay. Most usually by a female employee and that price tends to be one of authorship.

In these days of #metoo, when women are seriously challenging the predominant patriarchy in our cultural system, it’s about time Elizabeth Hauptmann was given her due. She was Brecht’s chief collaborator; in fact, according to some academics, sometimes the chief author of so many of his early works. She was fascinated by the female characters in John Gay’s The Beggars Opera and its portrayal of poverty in London, so began to translate it into German. Brecht was ever the opportunist and when one of his own plays was rejected by an ambitious theatre owner to open a new theatre in Berlin, Brecht immediately proposed Hauptmann’s version of The Beggars Opera, without crediting Elizabeth and changing the title to The Threepenny Opera. Threepenny is the work of several geniuses. Brecht and Weill definitely - but without Elizabeth Hauptmann’s immense contribution this play (musical, opera), which literally did change the world, may never have come into existence.

The Lyric first produced Threepenny in 1981 starring a cast of Lyric stalwarts including Stella McCusker, Dan Gordon and the late Peter Quigley. This year the Lyric is celebrating 50 years on Ridgeway Street and we are looking for your memories, anything at all you recall of seeing shows in this theatre (old and new) over the years. We’d like to include some of them in an ongoing archive that we intend to exhibit later in the year and on social media. If you have anything you’d like to share with us - a memory, old programmes, or photos - please contact memories@lyrictheatre.co.uk.

Jimmy Fay Executive Producer Lyric Theatre

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“This bitterl y satirical w ork John Gay’s eighteenth-c , closely based on entury ball Beggar’s O ad-opera, T pera, which he had opened actly two h in London ex undred yea rs before, w itself even as soon to more popu prove lar than its The Threep original mo enn del… a modern cl y Opera was soon esta blished as assic of its kind, and th of the word e combinati s of Brecht on and recognised as complem the music of Weill, wa s entary as th and Sulliva at of Gilber n.” t Note from John Boyd , Lyric The and Litera atre Direct ry Advisor, or 1981

Lyric Theatre programme cover, The Threepenny Opera, 1981

Producti on photo from the Lyric Th eatre pr oduction The Thre of epenny O pera, 19 81.

, Programme Credits , 1981 era Op y nn pe The Three

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REHEARSALS

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DIRECTOR’S NOTES “IT IS IN THE SONGS THAT THE CHARACTERS GAIN A DEPTH OF HUMANITY AND EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT” In The Threepenny Opera Brecht looks his audience in the eye and tells them what he thinks of them.

Although the story comes from the early 18th century The Beggars Opera, and the title The Threepenny Opera suggests street thieves and Victorian London, Brecht is clear that his story is about us - the capitalist bourgeoisie. The original title was Luder-Oper, meaning Pimps-Opera. This gives a better sense of the story that Brecht wants to tell. His story is one of exploitation. Every character is motivated solely by the desire to enrich themselves. Everything is there to be exploited. Everybody has a sense of entitlement. Truth is of little value, anything and everything can be sacrificed on the altar of property and wealth and the consequence is a bizarre yet familiar mixture of intense paranoia, apathetic nihilism and profound gallows humour. However, although the message is fundamentally bleak, the piece asks us a profound question. Do we really want to live and keep living in the way the characters do?

The possibility of the characters changing the ending, no matter how ‘theatrical’ or ‘artificial’ it may appear, does confront us with the question of can we change our direction. This seems to be very pertinent in our current situation!

To move from content to style, I believe that Brecht’s dialogues have something consciously artificial about them, in the same way that commedia dell’arte or Restoration comedy play with theatricality, form and artifice often to get to a truth. In our modern Englishspeaking theatre we have become accustomed to psychological naturalism as pretty much the norm, and I believe that we are less used than previous generations to the doors that artifice and formality can open for us. Like Strindberg and Wedekind before him, Brecht is not really interested in creating well drawn psychological characters in the manner of Ibsen. Instead he is concerned with playing with their defects in a provocative way, more caricaturist than reportage photographer. So, dialog passages often emerge as surreal slapsticks in the spirit of Punch

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and Judy. It is in the songs that the characters gain a depth of humanity and emotional engagement even if it is generally of quite a bleak nature - and we gain an extra capacity to engage, empathise and be entertained by our proximity to them. Kurt Weill’s score grounded a narrative that Brecht had placed in Victorian London absolutely in the Berlin of the 1920s. So the piece was always talking about more than one time and place. Now Weill’s music has become part of our audio fabric, bringing Weimar Germany to all of us, and at the same time transcending it. For many people ‘Mack the Knife’ says Louis Armstrong and New York, or Michael Bublé and somewhere else. For us it is universal, the same as the motives of the piece which are completely transferable from one western society to another – maybe we are all not so different? Our production aims to keep the spirit of Brecht, perhaps even clarifying it, while populating it with figures closer in time and location to us here and now.

Walter Sutcliffe Artistic Director Northern Ireland Opera

Quote from contemporary reviews after The Threepenny Opera premiere in August 1928: It would be hard to classify The Threepenny Opera in terms of genre. It is not an Offenbachiade, which mocks a genre using its own means. It also isn’t one of the literal reviews that have become so popular in Berlin’s West end. This Threepenny Opera foregoes amiableness, and despite its intentions of comedy, is much more serious than other parodistic drama or operetta.

(ERICH KÄSTNER, NEUE LEIPZIGER ZEITUNG)

INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR WALTER SUTCLIFFE AND MUSICAL DIRECTOR SINEAD HAYES QUESTIONS BY JUDITH WIEMERS

Walter, this is your first production as the new Artistic Director of Northern Ireland Opera. Why did you pick this piece to introduce yourself to the audience in Northern Ireland?

WS: I have been lucky enough throughout my directing career to have had projects that fit. By this I don't just mean projects that work for me, but projects that are suitable for the company that is producing them. The projects I turned down were always ones where I felt that the fit was wrong. This is to say that I believe a company needs to choose projects that reflect its ambitions, its necessities and its capacities. I feel that now is the moment to broaden our sense of what repertoire an opera company performs. The Threepenny Opera is a genrecrossing work and seemed perfect as a starting point for this process. It is also an ideal piece to co-produce with our new partners here at the Lyric Theatre, and it is a piece that I, as an audience member, never get tired of.

Do you think Brecht and Weill aimed to create political, or rather popular theatre?

WS: I've been asked to respond to many variations of this high art vs. popular art question and I always say the following: I think that Mozart's Marriage of Figaro contains some strong political statements, but Mozart's main concern was for a popular success.

My limited knowledge of Brecht tells me that he had a wicked sense of humour and was a great provocateur. He enjoyed praise and success and hated being on the receiving end of criticism. He was a great believer in comedy. Being unpopular wouldn't have made him happy. I think that a desire to entertain and to provoke are not mutually exclusive.

Brecht and Weill parody the traditions of bourgeois theatre by imitating established stage and musical forms. To what extent does this legacy play a role in this production?

WS: I think more than parodying, they are setting out to experiment with form and novelty. John Gay’s The Beggar's Opera (1728), that formed the basis for The Threepenny Opera, is a parody of the dominant operatic tradition. Brecht, as he sees it – and he is never one to sit on the fence – is engaged in the development of something new; he is experimenting with what he terms Epic Theatre, whatever that may be. When I read the German original, I see Brecht’s love of restoration comedy, of Commedia dell’arte, of caricature leaping off the page. I see a Punch and Judy show populated by figures that are frighteningly recognisable. These aspects certainly informed our production.

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Brecht considered the cabaret style ideal for this work, because cabaret performers are both "ordinary citizens and expertly trained artisans". Do you agree? How does working with our cast differ from your usual work with opera singers?

WS: As far as I am concerned there is no difference.

We need to ask questions of a script and its characters to bring a situation to life. Then we need to put the answers to those questions into action.

Simple. The big difference isn't between people and processes but between pieces themselves – there is a vast stylistic difference between, for example, Brecht and Ibsen, or Verdi and Puccini, and these differences affect my working process far more than the question of who is performing.

SH: I agree with Brecht’s observation. It has been so rewarding to work on the details of Weill's music with our cast – especially the rhythm and articulation, finding common ground between opera and cabaret, while at the same time giving their individual voices and musical perspectives the space and flexibility to shine through in performance.

In the Finale, we see an absurd resolve in Mack's redemption. As Peachum puts it, “at least as far as opera goes, you’ll find that mercy just for once inheres.”

Do you think this ending is a plea for humanity and forgiveness, or is it rather a Brechtian device to show the artificiality of theatre – an ambition he outlined in his theoretical writings?

WS: I don't always buy into what Brecht wrote several years after the original production. His measured explanations don't tally with what we know to have been the chaos of his creative process. You could say that the show was supposed to mirror real life, and the new ending is supposed to tell us it's just a show.

Personally, I don't know about this whole need to tell people they are in the theatre. They bought a ticket so they know, right? You could say that the ending is a call to action; if you don't like the world you're in then change it. I find this idea more fruitful. The irony is that the happy ending is a disappointment since it is just another manifestation of our limited imaginations…maybe he wants it that way.

Instead of developing psychologically-rounded characters, Brecht presents recognisable social types and stock characters. How is this reflected in this production?

WS: Brecht is in a long tradition of work that does not subscribe to psychological realism. But that doesn't mean his characters lack psychology. They have

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very clear needs and targets. However, it does mean that to present The Threepenny Opera as a piece of realism in the Ibsen box-set tradition is perhaps to do him a disservice. As a team, we try to use our understanding of the material to, hopefully, present its essential qualities. Art doesn't have to be realistic to be truthful.

Weill's score is incredibly diverse with its faux-operatic structure and its variety of song-types and styles; ballads, bel canto, choral, etc. How do you approach a score like this?

SH: It is indeed very diverse, but has one common thread: Weill's brilliantly distinctive harmonic language!

My first steps were to play through both the piano reduction and full score to get a feeling for the harmonic and melodic language, colours and timbres. Weill’s palette is very varied with his unusual instrumentation. I listened to many recordings of The Threepenny Opera to gauge what performance traditions have developed over time.

Weill's score incorporates many popular dance forms from the 1920s – the Shimmy or Boston for example – and I spent plenty of time bopping around my kitchen in Berlin to old dance band recordings. I then started thinking of my own ideas on tempi and style, which we developed further in the rehearsals with our cast. My aim was to set up a solid framework in rehearsals, so that in performance the singers could bring the music to a whole new level!

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The score was first performed by the Lewis Ruth Band - one of the most popular dance and film bands of the era. What are the challenges for modern performers and conductor?

SH: The main challenges are the stylistic details and nuances of the music. The Lewis Ruth Band played popular dances like the Tango or Shimmy all the time – for actual dancers! They would have developed a collective sense of the 'right' tempo and style to match the dancers’ steps. As a conductor, part of my job is to help the band develop that feel for the music, so that it swings in all the right places.

‘The Ballad of Mack the Knife’ was the most popular theatre tune of the 20th century. Can you explain the attraction of both the character and music?

SH: The tune of ‘Mack the Knife’ is brilliantly simple in its construction. However, Weill's underpinning harmony is often unexpected, keeping our interest alive as the tune repeats many times.

WS: It's a good tune, right? And we all love a flawed anti-hero. Just look at James Bond!

CREDITS CAST (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) JENNY DIVER KERRI QUINN CELIA PEACHUM MATTHEW CAVAN REV. KIMBALL/DOLLY ORLA MULLAN READYMONEY MATT/COAXER TOMMY WALLACE BOB THE SAW/BETTY JOLENE O’HARA CROOKFINGER JAKE PAUL GARRETT JACKIE ‘TIGER’ BROWN RICHARD CROXFORD POLLY PEACHUM JAYNE WISENER LUCY BROWN BRIGID SHINE SERGEANT SMITH MAEVE SMYTH MACHEATH MARK DUGDALE JONATHAN PEACHUM STEVEN PAGE CHARLES FILCH/ WALT DREARY/ CONSTABLE GERARD McCABE

CREATIVE TEAM BOOK & LYRICS BERTOLT BRECHT MUSIC KURT WEILL ENGLISH ADAPTATION MARC BLITZSTEIN DIRECTOR WALTER SUTCLIFFE MUSICAL DIRECTOR SINEAD HAYES SET & COSTUME DESIGNER DOROTA KAROLCZAK LIGHTING DESIGNER WOLFGANG GOEBBEL ASSISTANT DIRECTOR/ OUTREACH JUDITH WIEMERS RÉPÉTITEUR KEITH McALISTER BAND ALTO SAX/CLARINET TENOR SAX/CLARINET TRUMPET TROMBONE GUITAR/ HAWAIIAN GUITAR/BANJO PERCUSSION/TIMPANI PIANO/HARMONIUM PRODUCTION TEAM PRODUCTION MANAGER TECHNICAL MANAGER TECHNICIANS

CASTING DIRECTOR COMPANY STAGE MANAGER DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER WARDROBE SUPERVISOR WARDROBE ASSISTANT COSTUME MAKERS

DRESSERS

CARPENTER SCENIC ARTIST HAIR & MAKE UP 10

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THE LYRIC THEATRE AND NORTHERN IRELAND OPERA WOULD LIKE TO THANK: ARTS & BUSINESS NI, ARTS COUNCIL OF NORTHERN IRELAND, BELFAST CITY COUNCIL, CASTLE STAGE HIRE, CATHRYN KINGHAN, CELESTE McEVOY, DONAL McCRISKEN, GRAND OPERA HOUSE BELFAST, INSIGNIA EMBROIDERY, KATE GUELKE, JAMES HENRY, LAURENCE ROBERTS FROM CITY RESORTS, MARTA NIELSEN, OUT TO LUNCH FESTIVAL, QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST, RICHARD McBRIDE, ROGER McCANN, ST PATRICK’S GRAMMAR SCHOOL DOWNPATRICK, GERRY HELLAWELL, WELLS KENNEDY ORGAN BUILDERS LISBURN THERE WILL BE A 20 MINUTE INTERVAL AFTER PART 1

MATTHEW BERRILL KEVIN LAWLESS WILL PALMER STEPHANIE DYER MATTHEW DOWIE RONAN McKEE KEITH McALISTER PAUL HINCHCLIFFE KEITH GINTY IAN VENNARD CONAL CLAPPER JONNY DALEY STEVE ANDERSON RUSSEL ALDERDICE CLARE GAULT KATE MILLER AIMEE YATES LOUISE BRYANS GILLIAN LENNOX ERIN CHARTERIS CHRISTINE BOYLE MEL LYLE LISA DUNNE SARAH CAREY UNA HICKEY VIORELLA MUSAT NIAMH KEARNEY ROISIN OWENS NOEL WOODS BEV CRAIG ORLAITH WALSH #THREEPENNYOPERA

NORTHERN IRELAND OPERA & LYRIC THEATRE

27 JAN – 10 FEB 2018

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CAST

Matthew Cavan Celia Peachum

Richard Croxford Jackie ‘Tiger’ Brown

Mark Dugdale Macheath

Matthew has become a very well known entertainer on the cabaret scene in Northern Ireland for his alter-ego Miss Cherrie Ontop, who is the resident drag artist in the Cabaret Supper Club, Belfast.

Richard is delighted to be back at The Lyric. His career has included acting, writing and directing for numerous theatre companies locally, nationally, internationally and for London’s West End on three occasions. Favourite acting roles include Shylock in Merchant of Venice; Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband; Chris Keller in All My Sons; Dracula in Dracula; Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights; Pip in Great Expectations; and Djuka in Mirad a Boy from Bosnia.

Originally from Belfast, Mark currently lives in London. He trained at the Guildford School of Acting and the Irish Film Actors Studio, Dublin.

Theatre Credits include: Jason in Bison (Theatreofpluck) at Brian Friel Theatre and The Oval House Theatre; Himself in Glory (Theatreofpluck) Outburst 2016; Dwight in Elegies for Angels, Pucks and Raging Queens at The Black Box; Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror Cabaret Show (Hotchpotch) at Cabaret Supperclub; Audrey II in Little Cabaret of Horrors (Hotchpotch); Davy Harrison in Rip Her To Shreds at The Black Box; King of Gooseland in Mother Goose (Qdos) at the Grand Opera House; Abanazar in Aladdin (C21) at The Braid.

Matthew was the Associate Director on The Doppler Effect and The Hapsburg Tragedies with The Belfast Ensemble, and the Assistant Director on The Ladykillers with the Lyric Theatre.

He is delighted to be working with the company and playing such an amazing role.

In the late 90’s Richard started moving in to directing theatre.

He took over as artistic director of Replay Productions in 2000, producing work for children and young people and then at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2008, overseeing the launch of the new theatre’s artistic programme until the end of 2013.

Most recently Richard has been working as a freelance artist again; He is about to direct Abigail’s Party at The Mac and has just finished acting there in Hansel and Gretel; He will be seen later this year in the Feature Film Trautmann and is currently writing a new stage musical - Bingo.

Lyric Theatre: Soup in Merry Christmas Betty Ford, Theo in Beauty and The Beast.

Theatre: Jesus Christ Superstar (Regents Park Open Air Theatre), Bob Crewe in Jersey Boys (Piccadilly Theatre), Derek Scully in The Commitments (Palace Theatre), We Will Rock You (Dominion Theatre), Jest End (Leicester Square Theatre), Les Misérables (Queen’s Theatre); Mary Sunshine in Chicago (Cambridge Theatre), Chris in Have a Nice Life (Union Theatre), Asher in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (national tour), Randolf in Bye Bye Birdie (Landor Theatre), The Boy Friend (50th anniversary production).

Workshops include: The Commitments, London Time.

Recordings: Les Misérables – The Movie (Working Title), Stage and Screen (BBC Radio 3).

Concerts: Night of A Thousand Stars (Royal Albert Hall), Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert (02 Arena).

Television: Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV).

Mark was the recipient of the Kenneth Branagh Renaissance Award to pursue training.

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CAST

Paul Garrett Crookfinger Jake

Gerard McCabe Charles Filch/Walt Dreary/Constable

Orla Mullan Rev. Kimball/Dolly

Paul trained at the prestigious East 15 Acting School, London, receiving an M.A.

Gerard trained at Youth Action Northern Ireland’s Rainbow Factory School of Performing Arts.

He has recently been seen playing the killer Robert Black on BBC NI.

Credits include: What The Reindeer Saw (Lyric Theatre); The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Aged 13 ¾) (Bruiser Theatre Company/MAC Theatre); Smiley, Pride & Prejudice and The Jungle Book (Lyric Theatre); The Blue Boy of Glenmore (Brassneck Theatre Co); Jacque Brel is Alive and Well (Lyric Theatre/Blunt Fringe); Lally the Scut, Fireworks, Swing State Cabaret (Tinderbox); Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged, 25th Annual Spelling Bee, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Blue Remembered Hills (Bruiser); iSpy (Big Telly); Short Strand Rising, Henry and Harriot (Kabosh); Tosca (Northern Ireland Opera); The New Kid, Sinking (Replay); The Comedy of Errors (Belfast Th. Co); Herons, Pvt. Wars (Pintsized Productions).

Orla trained at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) graduating with a First Class BA (Hons) Degree in Acting in 2005. She is also a 2005 Spotlight Prize nominee.

His extensive film & TV roles include Game of Thrones; Five Minutes of Heaven; Cherrybomb; Betrayal of Trust; Covet; Ditching; Probable Cause and many more.

Paul earned rave reviews for his role in Darren Bingham’s The Bench at The MAC. He also played the lead in Derek Murphy’s Miles Overman.

Mr. Garrett started his career in The Group Theatre with the late, great Peter Quigley, moving on to roles in the Ulster Youth Theatre & Ulster Theatre Company.

His radio work includes narrating BBC RADIO 4’s Literary Landscapes with Mariella Frostrup and local author Glenn Patterson.

Paul has sang in various guises in the Grand Opera House, Ulster Hall, Arts Theatre and Derry Playhouse.

His band, The Renegades are currently recording their debut album and can be seen live in venues all over Ireland.

Paul has boxed at amateur level and is a keen power lifter and gym enthusiast.

He is a father of two beautiful girls, Lily & Grace.

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Panto credits: Ugly Sister for Qdos in Cinderella (Belfast Grand Opera House), Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Aladdin, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Show White & the Seven Dwarfs (Millennium Forum); Aladdin, Pinnochio (Waterfront Hall) and Cinderella & Sleeping Beauty (Market Place Theatre).

Gerard has numerous small screen credits and is Artistic Producer @PintsizedNi.

Theatre includes: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Aged 13 3/4) (Bruiser); An Evening with Bette Midler (The Playhouse - Premiere & Irish Tour); Fly Me to the Moon (Balor Rep); A Christmas Carol (Maxim Theatre, Stockholm); Josef Locke, A Grand Adventure (The Playhouse & N.Irish Tour); Denizen (Premiere, Creggan Enterprises); Pits and Perverts (Sole Purpose Productions, Premiere and UK & Irish Tour); Cinderella (Lyric Theatre); The London Vertigo (Balor Rep); The Comedy of Errors (Ulster Theatre Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sense and Sensibility (UK, Ireland and International Tour); Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (UK Productions, No.1 UK Tours 2006/2008 & Maltese Premiere 2009); The Secret Garden (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Into the Woods (The Landor, London); The Country Boy and Irish Premiere of Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls (Balor Rep); Down in the Valley and Bastien and Bastienne (Welsh National Opera); Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk (Millennium Forum Productions); Red Riding Hood (c21); The Pride (Blue Eagle Productions).

Screen credits include: Bad Day for the Cut (Six Mile Hill Productions); Paula (BBC); The Fall Season 2 (BBC); Emmerdale (ITV); Peter Kay’s Britain’s Got the Pop Factor (Channel 4); I’d Do Anything (BBC).

CAST

Jolene O’Hara Bob the Saw/Betty

Steven Page Jonathan Peachum

Kerri Quinn Jenny Diver

Jolene’s theatre credits include; Beauty/Marvin in Sleeping Beauty (LANA Productions); Aoife/Mary in I Never See the Prettiest Thing (Partisan Productions); Logainne Scwartzandgrubenierre in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Bruiser Theatre Company); Juliet in Romeo & Juliet (C21 Theatre Company).

Steven Page worked as a trademark attorney before training at the National Opera Studio. His long and enduring career has seen appearances with all the major UK opera houses and festivals and throughout Europe, Australia and North America. He has particularly noteworthy associations with Glyndebourne, English National Opera, Covent Garden and Opera North. His hugely varied roles include Nick Shadow The Rake’s Progress, all the major Mozart baritone roles, Pizarro Fidelio, Paolo Simon Boccanegra, Mittenhofer Elegy for Young Lovers, Filippovich A Dog’s Heart, Walsingham Dr Dee, Prus The Makropulos Case, Balstrode Peter Grimes‚ Spencer Coyle Owen Wingrave and Minskman Jonathan Dove’s Flight.

Kerri began her acting training in Theatre Studies at BIFHE and continued on to achieve a B.A. (Hons.) degree at Queen’s University Belfast. Recent theatre roles include Valerie (The Weir, Lyric/Decadent Production); Rita (Educating Rita, Lyric Theatre); Madame Geneva (Madame Geneva, Macha Productions).

Jolene’s TV credits include, Doris in My Mother and Other Strangers (BBC); adverts for DOE road safety and Tourism NI. Mary Reilly in Marú (Stirling Productions).

Jolene graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 2009 with a 2:1 BEng in Product Design and Development Engineering. Jolene has an LLCM in Musical Theatre Performance from the London College of Music in 2012. She placed 2nd overall (1st Female) in the Sir William Lloyd Webber UK Voice NPACompetition in London.

Jolene runs a couple of small businesses with her sister Philippa. They make up a singing duo called Songbirds and have sung at many large scale events over the years, including Lush!

Classical at the SSE arena with the Ulster Orchestra 2016 + 2017.

They also run children’s princess party entertainment business, The Frozen Princess, which won the Families First award for Best Birthday Party Entertainment 2017.

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Page’s theatre work includes Sweeney and The Judge Sweeney Todd, roles in Parade, in Candide and in Oedipus, at such venues as the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and The Old Vic and he can be seen in the film Tomorrow La Scala!.

Other theatrical roles include Mary (The Nativity…What The Donkey Saw, Lyric Theatre); Elaine (Smiley, Lyric Theatre); Mary/Donna (Here Comes the Night, Lyric Theatre); various (What We’re Made Of, Tinderbox); Ruby (Shibboleth, Abbey Theatre); Angie Best (Dancing Shoes The George Best Musical UK Tour); Lisa/ Tracey (Flesh and Blood Women, Greenshoot); Mother/Princess (Nivelli’s War, Cahoots NI); Roberta (Belfast by Moonlight, Kabosh); Beauty Queen (Hatch P.J O’Reily/The Mac); Patsy (Baby its Cold Outside, GBl); Ma (Weddins, Weeins and Wakes, Lyric Theatre); Dee (Huzzies, Tinderbox); Emily (Titanic Boys, GBL Productions); Susie Ego (The Weein, Red Lemon); Woman Two (Three Women, C21) and Anita (West Side Story, Gaiety Theatre Dublin).

Her TV credits include Fishbowl City (Martin McCann); Betrayal of Trust (BBC); The Last Story Teller (RTE) and The Frankenstein Chronicles (ITV Encore). Kerri has just finished filming for the BBC, playing the lead in a new three part drama Come Home (BBC 1), due to air this Spring.

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CAST

Brigid Shine Lucy Brown

Maeve Smyth Sergeant Smith

Tommy Wallace Readymoney Matt/Coaxer

Brigid is very grateful to be making her Lyric Theatre debut in The Threepenny Opera and has been so inspired by the cast and creative team working on this special show.

Maeve studied at East 15 Acting School and graduated in 2014. Since moving back to Northern Ireland she has done a range of theatre acting, from playing Lady Macbeth in the Grand Opera House (C21 Theatre Company) to working with Cahoots NI on their latest touring show, The Assistant’s Revenge, which returns to The Mac in March. In the Iast year she has been involved in short film, with one of her projects, Monkeys in the Garden, being selected for the prestigious Galway Film Fleadh. The Threepenny Opera will be her first time working with both Northern Ireland Opera and the Lyric Theatre.

She is thrilled to be involved in such an exciting production.

Tommy graduated with BA Hons in Drama from the University of Leeds.

He then went on to a post-graduate degree at Guildford School of Drama.

Brigid trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2017, she originated the role of Theresa Carmody in the world premiere of Angela’s Ashes the Musical which toured Ireland from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre to the Grand Opera House, Belfast. Other theatre credits include: Hansel and Gretel (The MAC Belfast), Cuss the World (Spanner in the Works), Aladdin (GBL Productions/The Waterfront), 1932: The People of Gallagher Street (Green Shoot Productions), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), Happy End - Kurt Weill Revue (Royal Scottish National Orchestra), Urinetown (Edinburgh Fringe Festival/RCS), Jack and the Beanstalk (Qatar National Theatre).

Screen credits include feature film Is This Now (AceFilm) and In Cold Blood (BBC).

Brigid is the founder of Brú Theatre Company, based in London.

Her play 22 made its debut at Spotlight Studios in London before appearing at HerStory Festival at Theatre N16 last Autumn.

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Theatre credits include A Taste of Honey Yorkshire Playhouse; Swan Lake and The Nutcracker (Birmingham Royal Ballet).

Lolita (New York Fringe Festival).

The Millies and Flaming Fables (Replay Theatre Company); Candide (Bruiser Theatre Company) and Qdos Cinderella for The Grand Opera House.

Lyric Theatre credits include the RSC’s Wizard of Oz and Molly Wobbly’s Tit Factory for both the Lyric and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Other shows include Pinnochio, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel and Gary Mitchell’s comedy Smiley.

Television Credits include Is It Me? (BBC N.Ireland); A Touch of Frost (Yorkshire Television); Heartburn Hotel (BBC) and Just One Look (DOE).

CAST

Jayne Wisener Polly Peachum Jayne grew up in Coleraine and currently lives in London. She trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

Theatre credits include Cinderella (The Orchard Theatre); Cinderella (Grand Opera House); The Bloody Irish! (Helix Theatre/Broadcast on PBS); Aladdin (Grand Opera House); Lizzie Siddal (Arcola Theatre); Cinderella (Grand Opera House); Notes To Future Self (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); The Secret Garden (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Parade (Donmar Warehouse) Television credits include Hayden’s Dream (Paul McKenzie/Foz Allan); Doctors (BBC); London Irish (Channel 4); The Life And Adventures Of Nick Nickleby (BBC); 6 Degrees (BBC NI); Misfits (E4 for Channel 4); Injustice (Travers Productions Ltd); Runaway (Company Television Productions Ltd); Casualty (BBC); Vexed (Greenlit Rights Lts); The Inbetweeners (Bwark Productions); Minder (Talkback Thames/Five) Film: Son of Perdition (Matthew Harrison Films); Life Just Is (Ruby Films); Jane Eyre (Focus Features); A Kiss For Jed (Louisiana Film Productions); Boogeyman 3 (BM3 Productions); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Dreamworks/Warner Bros) Radio credits: Notes To Future Self (BBC Radio 4)

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CREATIVE TEAM Walter Sutcliffe Director

Kurt Weill Music

Opera productions include: Tiefland (Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse), Rigoletto (Santiago, Chile), Teatro Il Colon (Buenos Aires), Manon Lescaut (Theater Osnabrück), Otello (Teatro Regio, Torino), Turn of the Screw (Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse), L’Orontea, Owen Wingrave and Ghost Sonata (Oper Frankfurt), Le Grand Macabre and Der Zwerg (Theater Chemnitz), La traviata and Luisa Miller (Braunschweig), Kiss me Kate and Werther (Magdeburg), Don Giovanni and Orpheus in the Underworld (Osnabrueck), Zar und Zimmerman (Bremerhaven), Die Fledermaus (Halberstadt), Albert Herring (Landestheater Linz), Cosi fan Tutte and Carmen (Estonian National Opera, Tallinn), Tippett’s The Knot Garden (Klangbogen Festival, Vienna), and Janacek’s Sarka (Dicapo Opera New York).

Theatre work includes Strindberg’s The Great Highway (Gate Theatre, London), Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning (Finborough Theatre, London) and Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale (BAC, London).

Kurt Weill was born in Dessau, Germany in 1900. By the time he was twelve, he was composing and mounting concerts and dramatic in the Gemeindehaus. By 1925, a series of performances in Berlin and at international music festivals established Weill as one of the leading composers of his generation and in 1926, at Dresden, he gained success in the theatre with his first opera, Der Protagonist. Weill considered Der Neue Orpheus (1925), a cantata for soprano, violin and orchestra, on a poem by Ivan Goll, to be a turning point in his career.

Walter Sutcliffe has been Artistic Director of Northern Ireland Opera since January 2017.

Bertolt Brecht Book & Lyrics Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany on February 10, 1898, and died in Berlin on August 14, 1956.

He grew to maturity as a playwright in the frenetic years of the twenties and early thirties, with the plays Man Equals Man, The Threepenny Opera, Mahogonny, and The Mother.

He left Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933, eventually reaching the United States in 1941, where he remained until 1947. It was during this period of exile that the masterpieces Life Of Galileo, Mother Courage, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Puntila were written. Shortly after his return to Europe in 1947 with his wife, Helene Weigel, he founded the Berliner Ensemble, becoming its executive director, and from then until his death Brecht was mainly occupied in producing and directing his own plays there.

A commission from the BadenBaden Music Festival in 1927 led to the creation of Mahogonny (Songspiel), Weill’s first collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Weill and Brecht continued to work together on the full-length opera Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahogonny. Exploiting a newly derived popular song-style, Weill and Brecht also wrote several works for singing actors in the commercial theater, including Die Dreigroschenoper and Happy End. They explored other alternatives to the opera establishment in the school-opera Der Jasager and the radio cantatas Das Berliner Requiem and Der Lindberghflug.

In Paris, Weill completed his Second Symphony and renewed briefly his collaboration with Brecht for Die Sieben Todsunden, a “ballet with singing” for George Balanchine’s company, “Les Ballets” (1933.)

Weill also wrote film scores in Hollywood, an American schoolopera with Arnold Sundgaard, Down In The Valley, as well as numerous other works. In addition, he served as a member of The Playwrights’ Company and The Dramatists’ Guild. During the war years, he was extremely active in artistic initiatives intended to foster morale and boost various war efforts. Weill died on April 3, 1950.

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CREATIVE TEAM Marc Blitzstein English Adaption

Wolfgang Goebbel Lighting Design

Sinead Hayes Musical Director

Marc Blitzstein (1905-64) was born in Philadelphia and appeared as a pianist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 15. He later studied with the influential French teacher Nadia Boulanger and the Austrian-born composer Arnold Schoenberg. His works include the opera Regina (1949), based on Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, The Cradle Will Rock (1937) and No For An Answer (1941) and an English Adaptation of the German poet Bertolt Brecht's book and lyrics for The Threepenny Opera, by the GermanAmerican composer Kurt Weill.

Wolfgang Goebbel has been working in the theatre lighting industry for many years and has worked in all aspects of live entertainment from theatre, opera, ballet and musicals.

In 2011 he was awarded the ‘Knight of Illumination’ in Opera Lighting.

Galway conductor Sinead Hayes is in her fourth season as conductor with the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Belfast. A graduate of the prestigious Royal Northern College of Music masters conducting programme, she was conductor of the inaugural phase of the Sym-Phonic Waves West of Ireland Youth Orchestra (2017), is principal conductor of the Amaretti Chamber Orchestra in Manchester and has conducted orchestras all over Europe. Her teachers and masterclass mentors have included Péter Eötvös, Johannes Schlaefli, Martyn Brabbins, Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.

Dorota Karolczak Set & Costume Design Dorota is a freelance designer based in Berlin. She has worked on numerous productions for theatres including Semperoper Dresden, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Graz Opera, Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Halle Opera and Theater Augsburg. After initially studying architecture in Spain, Poland and Germany, she worked as an architect with Juan Domingo Santos in Granada. She later studied scenic design at the TU Berlin. Her design work has included short films, commercials, music videos, feature films, curated exhibitions and events. She recently codesigned the exhibition ‘Magic City’ which is currently touring major European cities, and a European Tour of the Rock Musical Rent.

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He has worked extensively in the UK, Germany and Europe and has had productions in Australia, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong and the United States. Open-air opera productions include: Loreley (St. Gallen Switzerland, directed

by David Alden); Aida (Bregenz Festival, directed by Graham Vick); La Bohème (Bregenz Festival, directed by Richard Jones and Antony McDonald); and Un Ballo In Maschera (Bregenz Festival, directed by Richard Jones and Antony McDonald).

Already in the 2017/18 season she has made a return to the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, conducting their season prelude concert, and made her Opera Collective Ireland debut in a workshop performance of Raymond Deane’s new opera Vagabones. A noted traditional fiddle player, Sinead made her Berlin Philharmonie debut this season playing in two concerts as part of the Berlin Philharmonic’s Family Concert series, sharing a stage with musicians from the Berliner Philharmoniker. Previous opera experience includes conducting Hansel & Gretel (reduced version) in Manchester (2012); La Boheme (assistant conductor), Berlin 2016; Puccini’s Toaster Opera, Berlin, 2016; Le nozze di Figaro (assistant conductor and chorus master) British Youth Opera, 2011; and Tosca (chorus master), Focus Opera 2013. Forthcoming performances include conducting a concert for International Women’s Day with the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, the first performance of Greg Caffrey’s children’s opera The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse and a number of solo violin performances in Ireland and Germany. www.sineadhayes.net

CREATIVE TEAM Judith Wiemers Assistant Director

Keith McAlister Répétiteur

The Poor Soldier at Queen’s

Judith is working as a freelance dramaturg, with previous freelance positions and internships at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Hannover, Northern Ireland Opera and Landestheater Detmold. She worked on productions of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate and Mozart’s Così fan tutte amongst others. Most recently, she was the writer and dramaturg of Midnight Vanities, which was performed by the Northern Ireland Opera Studio artists at the Lyric Theatre. This year, she will continue to work with the Northern Ireland Opera Studio singers and co-direct a semi-staged opera production of William Shield’s

Keith McAlister studied piano with Richard Casey at the University of Manchester. He has taken part in festivals celebrating the work of Helmut Lachenmann and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and given world premiere performances of works

by Steven Calver (BloodMachine) and Tom Coult (Ex Machinis). As an accompanist he has worked for the Royal Northern College of Music, the BBC, NYOGB, and the Ulster Orchestra. Recent projects include Midnight Vanities (Northern Ireland Opera Studio) and Mark Ravenhill and Conor Mitchell’s Queer Cabaret Songs (Lyric Theatre). Keith teaches at the City of Belfast School of Music.

University Belfast. Judith is currently completing a PhD in musicology at Queen’s University Belfast, where she explores the connections between German and American operetta and musical film of the 1930s. She has published articles on The Threepenny Opera film version, musical humour in operetta film, and jazz in German film musicals.

30.09.2018 — 06.10.2018 Book now www.goh.co.uk

VERDI

RIGOLETTO HATE IS BLIND

CARDIFF SINGER OF THE WORLD

PLÁCIDO DOMINGO’S OPERALIA WINNER

as Gilda

as the Duke of Mantua

NADINE KOUTCHER multi award winning Verdi Baritone

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DAVIDE GUISTI

SEBASTIAN CATANA as Rigoletto

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SUPPORTING CAST PRINCIPAL FUNDER:

CORPORATE LOUNGE SPONSOR:

THE LYRIC IS ALSO GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY: ALSO FUNDED BY: IN-KIND SPONSOR:

LYRIC THEATRE

PRODUCTION MANAGER PAUL HINCHCLIFFE

CARPENTER NOEL WOODS

TECHNICAL MANAGER KEITH GINTY

BOARD OF DIRECTORS SIR BRUCE ROBINSON (CHAIRMAN) STEPHEN DOUDS (VICE CHAIRMAN) PHIL CHEEVERS HENRY ELVIN PATRICIA McBRIDE MIKE MULLAN DR MARK PHELAN

TECHNICIANS CONAL CLAPPER IAN VENNARD JONNY DALEY

HOUSEKEEPING DEBBIE DUFF AMANDA RICHARDS SAMANTHA WALKER

PATRON LIAM NEESON OBE

CASTING DIRECTOR CLARE GAULT

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JIMMY FAY

ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT CAT RICE

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER CIARAN McAULEY

FINANCE MANAGER MICHEÁL MEEGAN

ASSISTANT PRODUCER BRONAGH McFEELY

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LITERARY MANAGER REBECCA MAIRS

FINANCE OFFICER TONI HARRIS PATTON

MARKETING MANAGER AISLING McKENNA

HEAD OF CREATIVE LEARNING PHILIP CRAWFORD

MARKETING OFFICER AIVEEN KELLY

CREATIVE LEARNING CO-ORDINATOR PAULINE McKAY

MARKETING ASSISTANT KATIE ARMSTRONG PR & PRESS CAROLYN MATHERS

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COMPANY STAGE MANAGER KATE MILLER

WARDROBE SUPERVISOR GILLIAN LENNOX WARDROBE ASSISTANT ERIN CHARTERIS

CREATIVE LEARNING SCHOOLS CO-ORDINATOR ERIN HOEY HEAD OF CUSTOMER SERVICE JULIE McKEGNEY

DEPUTY STAGE MANAGERS TRACEY LINDSEY AIMEE YATES

DUTY MANAGERS MARINA HAMPTON ASHLENE McGURK ELLA GRIFFIN

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGERS LOUISE BRYANS STEPHEN DIX

BOX OFFICE SUPERVISOR EMILY WHITE BOX OFFICE DEPUTY SUPERVISOR PAUL McCAFFERY

CUSTOMER SERVICE STAFF LUCY ARMSTRONG PAMELA ARMSTRONG LAURIE BAILEY LUKE BANNON MICHAEL BINGHAM CARLA BRYSON PAULA RUTH CARSON-LEWIS HANNAH CONLON ELLISON CRAIG GARY CROSSAN ALACOQUE DAVEY AMANDA DOHERTY DARREN FRANKLIN CHRIS GRANT ADELE GRIBBON SIMON HALL DAVID HANNA CATHAL HENRY TERESA HILL MEGAN KEENAN HELENNA HOWIE GERARD KELLY JULIE LAMBERTON HELEN LAVERY JAMIE McBRIEN AOIFE McCLOSKEY PATRICIA McGREEVY MARY McMANUS CATHAN McROBERTS CATHERINE MOORE DONAL MORGAN SEAMUS O’HARA BERNADETTE OWENS PATRICK QUINN BOBBI RAI PURDY VOLUNTEERS JEAN DUMAS YVONNE DUMAS JOAN GORMLEY GAVIN MORIARTY

NORTHERN IRELAND OPERA BOARD OF DIRECTORS ROY BAILIE OBE (CHAIRMAN) FIONNUALA JAY-O’BOYLE CBE, (VICE CHAIR) JAMES HUNT STEPHEN KINGON CBE KEN LINDSAY PROFESSOR DOLORES O’REILLY JANE WELLS PATRON AND AMBASSADORS SEAN RAFFERTY, PATRON THE COUNTESS OF CALEDON THE VISCOUNTESS DUNLUCE WILLIAM MONTGOMERY OBE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR WALTER SUTCLIFFE GENERAL MANAGER CLÍONA DONNELLY COMPANY AND OUTREACH MANAGER MARK IRWIN-WATSON MARKETING MANAGER ANDREW FORSYTHE DRAMATURG JUDITH WIEMERS

LYRIC THEATRE & BRUISER THEATRE COMPANY

THE COLLEEN BAWN

By Dion Boucicault

7 – 28 APR 2018

Directed by Lisa May